Former CABE chairman hits back at select committee witness angered by disputed Croydon Gateway site

Former CABE chairman Sir Stuart Lipton has angrily dismissed claims made by a Croydon councillor in a parliamentary select committee hearing last week.

The committee, which is investigating the role and effectiveness of CABE, heard evidence from councillor Adrian Dennis alleging that a conflict of interest existed between Lipton鈥檚 chairmanship of CABE and of developer Stanhope. He gave as an example the controversial Croydon Gateway development.

Lipton, who stepped down from his CABE role after an audit by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, told 黑洞社区 that these claims were not true.

He said: 鈥淐ouncillor Dennis is making the same allegations that have been dealt with by the audit. What I can tell you is that what was said was not true.鈥�

He added: 鈥淭he very strange thing about the Croydon Gateway project was that I was only involved in a tiny bit. Most of the meetings were held with [Stanhope chief executive] David Camp.鈥�

Lipton鈥檚 solicitor, Linklaters, has written to Clive Betts MP, the chair of the select committee, to ask that Dennis鈥� 鈥渇undamentally inaccurate鈥� representation be dismissed without consideration as 鈥渋rrelevant to the issues it wishes to consider regarding CABE鈥檚 future role鈥�.

What I can tell you is what was said was not true

Sir Stuart Lipton

However, this week Dennis raised the temperature of the debate again by writing his own letter to Betts, in which he questioned the conduct of select committee member Sir Paul Beresford. Dennis said Beresford had distracted the attention of other committee members and the media from his allegations by calling his motives for making the complaint about Lipton into question.

Beresford, a Conservative MP, told the committee that Dennis had a 鈥減ersonal battle鈥� with Lipton and cited a Croydon Labour party news sheet, which Beresford said referred to a 鈥淢r Slime鈥�. Dennis denied that he said that about Lipton or CABE.

Dennis said he wanted to tell the committee that CABE remained 鈥渁 gentleman鈥檚 club of well-connected individuals who will have had commercial dealings with each other and with many people in the development world鈥�.

Lipton dismissed this claim, which was directed at CABE鈥檚 design review panel. He said: 鈥淲ould you rather have a bunch of people who didn鈥檛 have any clue what they were talking about?鈥�